Irreconcilable Differences: “Divorce Iranian Style”

Irreconcilable Differences: "Divorce Iranian Style"

For most Westerners, Iran is a great blank on a map, its ancient societyinscrutable, its revolutionary government hostile and its peopleliterally shrouded. Since the Shah’s capitulation in the late 1970’s,images from the Islamic state rarely play outside the Muslim world, andwhen they do, they often leave us with fear and unease. Think SalmanRushdie, American hostages, the cult of personality that was theAyatollah Khomeini. But there are signs, too, that Iran is starting toopen itself up to foreign eyes, or allowing at least access to a keyholeto peep through.

Since early 1997, a more liberal government, headed by PresidentMohammad Khatami, has been amenable to dialogue with the West. Oneemblem of this new Iranian glasnost is the emergence of a cinema by andabout Iran, of most recent note, the 16mm verite documentary “DivorceIranian Style,” now playing at New York’s Film Forum for a two-week run.Funded by Britain’s Channel 4 and produced by veteran Britishdocumentarian Kim Longinotto and Iranian expatriate anthropologist ZibaMir-Hosseini, “Divorce Iranian Style” presents the proceedings of aTehran divorce court — a private world within a private country.

Shot almost entirely in a cramped courtroom, “Divorce Iranian Style”presents a series of women pleading their cases before a judge. They aretrying to extract permission for divorce, a right automatically given tomen but available to women only through the court system. The women inthe film, each unhappy with marriage in her own way, must resort to allsorts of tactics to obtain their divorces — negotiating, pleading,shouting, sharing embarrassing details, stretching the truth and tellingthe truth.

One 16-year-old bride claims her husband beat her, though her body isbruiseless; another publicizes her husband’s impotence for all to hear.Some characters succeed in obtaining a divorce or settlement, othersfail; but all of them impress a notion of Iranian womanhood that runscounter to what many Westerners might think. Don’t let their veils foolyou; these are outspoken women — working within Islamic law whileskillfully navigating a patriarchal system to get what they want. It isa struggle mirrored in the making of “Divorce Iranian Style.”

What is perhaps most impressive about “Divorce Iranian Style” is that itwas made at all. After deciding to collaborate on the project, it tookLonginotto and Mir-Hosseini almost two years to obtain the necessarypermits and visas to shoot in an Iranian court. The filmmakers’negotiations with authorities came to resemble those of the women theysought to document.

“It wasn’t easy,” Mir-Hosseini remembers. “The first time we went toIran, in March of 1996, our application was rejected. And the basicreason it was rejected was that there was no precedent for a film likeours. They wanted to say whom we were going to interview, what were ourcharacters, and give them an exact script of our plan. And we didn’thave [those things], because we wanted just to find a court and justfollow cases. And our project was rejected.” The two learned they stooda better chance by presenting their case to the Ministry of Culture, andso they traveled to Tehran in February of 1997. “Kim and I went thereand talked to many, many people, and we lobbied many organizations,women’s groups, everybody that you can imagine.”

They met with considerable resistance. Mir-Hosseini explains, “People inIran are very aware of the bad image that they have in the West. Andthey don’t want to deliver something else to be added to it. Andeverybody was uneasy about [our project], because they say that no filmabout divorce is going to be positive.” Like their would-be divorceecharacters, the filmmakers armed themselves with convincing rhetoric.“My argument was that if we let the reality show, if we do a film whichis based on what is happening…then it is not going to be negativepropaganda, because marriage and divorce is something which isuniversal. We wanted to make a film that people in the West could relateto, as well as people in Iran.”

Longinotto and Mir-Hosseini argued that there hadn’t been any filmsabout ordinary people in Iran, and that their work and others wouldserve as cultural ambassadors of the new Iran. Mir-Hosseini toldofficials, “You should allow many films. No [one] film can show thereality of Iranian society, but when there are many films, then peoplecan get an image.” Finally, they used the argument, “which was anegative one,” Ziba concedes, that “there are so many bad films aboutIran, so many bad documentaries or negative ones, imagine if ours isgoing to be negative, one in addition to another, it’s not going tochange Iran’s image. But at least let us make a film which isworthwhile.”

Their efforts paid off. Sort of. Longinotto and Mir-Hosseini gained theconsent of the ministry, and were told that the appropriate papers wouldbe sent to them in the UK. They returned to England and waited. Monthspassed, and the official permission never arrived. It took a change ofgovernment, and the installation of Khatami, to get the project on itsfeet. Ziba traveled to Iran in October 1997, and spoke to ministryofficials again. Two weeks later, a visa for Kim was issued. She flew toIran and the two started filming in November.

Mir-Hosseini credits the changing climate in Iran, observing, “There aregroups and factions that have matured after the revolution, and havecome to the realization that Iran has changed a lot, both the politicalphilosophy and also the people. And there are people in some of theministries, especially Ministry of Culture, who are very secure withtheir own identities, so they don’t relate to the West from thisposition of antagonism. They relate to the West and the outside worldfrom a very rational position.”

Conditions for Iranian filmmakers who traffic with Western funding anddistribution have improved considerably, though they are far from ideal.The fate of “Divorce Iranian Style” is a testament to this shiftingposition. The film has played in theaters and festivals bothinternationally and here in the States, but has had mixed success in itscountry of origin. Mir-Hosseini reports, “There have been two very goodreviews about the film in Iran. And also we had a request from the mainfestival in Iran to enter the film. . ., but unfortunately it was notaccepted, because it dealt with very intimate issues and there was aneed to get permission of the people in Iran. We had written permission,but I think that the time was not right to show the film.”

For the filmmakers, it is important that people in Iran see the film.Mir-Hosseini admits, “I am a woman, and I am a feminist, so I have anagenda. I want the law to be changed, and I can see this very much aspart of the debate that is going on in Iran, on the change of law andthe position of women.” She remains hopeful for the film’s future, andhas been working to obtain Iranian screenings. “I doubt it will ever beon television in Iran, because television has a totally differentpolicy. It’s very limited, and it doesn’t really deal with reality. It’sall propaganda. But cinema is totally different. It’s our dream that itwill be shown in a local cinema in Iran.”